First generation 360 power brick red light.

Over the course of the last 48 hours the power brick for my xbox has gone from good to bad and back again to good. Right now the red light is still on.

I have left the brick unplugged from both the xbox and the outlet for hours on end and it still won't work right. Is the best option to just buy a new one? Or is there something I can do to fix the one that can with the system?

Most likely not. Those brick have fans and other things inside of the to keep the heat out, as that is external power supply. What happened might be that the fans are dying and can't keep the heat out. If the fans won't start, it probably gives the red light and won't power on for safety reasons. That or it could just be going out in general. I'd look into getting another power supply, they should be fairly cheap these days. :)

Yeah I had the same problem roughly about 3 months ago. I tried opening it and blowing out the dust but that didn't do a whole lot :/ So I just ended up buying a new power brick off ebay, and not it works perfectly! :) I suggest until you order a new power brick, if you wish to continue playing xbox, put a fan on a stand near it facing its direction, that should keep your broken power brick running you until you buy a new one. And make sure when you do buy a new power brick keep it off the carpet or any kind of soft surface that can attract dust, same goes with your xbox. and remember to constantly wipe any dust off your xbox and power brick, inorder to avoid this again in the future.

Hope this helped :)